


A Distant Memory

by daddylonglegs13



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Chameleon Arch (Doctor Who), Doctor Who Series 12 Spoilers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Slow Burn, Somewhat, as slow as it is going to get between the two of them, for one of them, its a bit hard to be enemies when the doctor doesn't even remember who he is, potential trigger warning for chapter one, this is gonna be a rollercoaster that's all I have to say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:20:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25751239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daddylonglegs13/pseuds/daddylonglegs13
Summary: Haunted by Gallifrey's destruction, the Doctor is desperate to escape from her memories. This desperation leads her to use a chameleon arch in an attempt to forget who she is and what has happened. She creates the alias of Joan Smith and is more than willing to live a normal human life, working as a professor at a university in London. Any memories of the Doctor have been erased.Unfortunately for her, she wasn't alone on Gallifrey, and there is someone who remembers what she has tried so hard to forget. Someone who looks a lot like the man who shows up outside her door, the man who recently moved into the same building as her, and the man who is a new coworker of hers.And he isn't going to let her forget that easily.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first piece of fanfiction in YEARS and I completely blame Jodie and Sacha's performances in series twelve for forcing me out of my fanfic hiatus. This takes place after series twelve, in a lovely alternate universe where the Doctor never goes to prison and instead, takes advance of an old fob watch that she laying around. Basically, that chameleon arch fanfic where the Doctor becomes a human woman who works as an astrophysics professor and her strangely familiar neighbor/coworker who seems incredibly friendly and interested in her life. No one asked for this but I couldn't get the idea out of my head so here we go. I'm very anxious about posting this but I know that if I don't get it out there, the concept will keep rattling around in my head until I give in and write it so here goes nothing.
> 
> This first chapter is mostly exposition and is from the perspective of the Master, though most chapters after this will be Joan's POV. This chapter does have a POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING for self destructive thoughts and behavior coming from the Master, as well as a lot of references to his near death on Gallifrey. In summary: he's a mess and doesn't cope with it very well. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

The Master had grown accustomed to the idea of dying long before he had even been faced with it. Much of what he had been raised on was based around the constant Gallifreyan cycle of death and rebirth through regeneration. When he was no more than a child, he had accepted that someday, death would come for him.

When he had grown older, he had become death. He had done it in a desperate attempt to have control of his own life and as a result, he had manufactured chaos wherever he went. He had harnessed death as a weapon and he had been the one who had used it to make civilizations bend to his will. The Master was nothing if not brutal.

Then, came Gallifrey. He had been more than willing to give up his control over his own life for the first time in nearly a century. He had put his faith into the Doctor and for a moment, he had been certain that she would trigger the Death Particle and everything would end. He had been prepared to die on that planet. It seemed like a fitting end to a life that had been so marred with destruction. He had been more than ready to end an entire race in that one, glorious moment.

Instead of doing what he had asked of her, she had run away. She had run like she always did.

He shouldn’t have expected anything different, in retrospect. Though she may have been a coward, he felt like a fool for thinking that she could kill him and finally put an end to the game of cat and mouse that they had been playing for what seemed like forever. (And not the version of forever that lesser species had, either. The version of forever that only someone like him could understand.) In the past, her excuse had been that they were the only two left, which was nothing but a coward’s way of saying that she was afraid of being alone in the universe. The problem was that he didn’t care if she was afraid of not. That was why he had refused to regenerate in front of her -  _ him _ \- all those years ago, even when he had begged it of him. In that moment, he had wanted to see the Doctor suffer and he wanted to see him very,  _ very _ afraid.

Now, the Doctor could not use that excuse, not anymore. Not after she had discovered that she was greater than him and always would be. There was no longer that balance between the two of them and the Master’s misguided desire to stand with his old friend was finally gone. It was impossible to stand with someone who knew that they were capable of so much more than him. 

In a moment of complete cowardice, she had chosen to run from him, and she had left him to die on the planet that had not been his home for ages. Yes, he was used to death, but he was not used to being left behind to die, especially not by someone like her. (Though it had happened twice already, maybe he should begin to expect it from her. Once a coward, always a coward.)

He wasn’t sure if she had expected him to be blown up in the explosion or if she had planned for him to survive, but the Master was not going to waste his time by thinking about that. There was a time and place for contemplation and this was not it. This was a time for fire and fury and finding  _ her _ , and that sounded much more appealing to him than contemplation.

Contemplation could wait until after he had calmed his rage.

* * *

The lights of his Tardis flickered around him. The ship had managed to escape Gallifrey only a few seconds before it had been destroyed, but that hadn’t stopped it from being caught in the sheer force of the explosion. It hadn’t been badly damaged and it had kept him alive, which was cause for celebration enough, but despite all of this, he swore that he was going to rip his hair out if the lights didn’t fix themselves. 

Thankfully, for both the sake of his ship and his own wellbeing, the vital technology had not been damaged and he was still able to travel, should the need arise. The Master had stopped keeping track of how long he had been in his ship and alone with his thoughts, though it hadn’t been nearly long enough for him to stop shaking with anger. He was distantly aware of the stinging feeling in his palms from his fingernails stabbing into his skin and the soreness in his jaw from gritting his teeth.

He leaned forward on his fists and braced himself against the console of his Tardis, staring intently at the screen in front of him. It seems that the lights weren’t the only part that had been damaged in the blast, because the speed at which his ship was managing to pull up any information about the Doctor was nothing short of pathetic. He was beginning to think that he could have had better luck if he just used a search engine from Earth like he had been forced to use when he was still O. He would have thought that the humans at MI6 were more evolved than the rest of their species and would have evolved past using outdated machinery, but he had been proven wrong after only a few days of work.

(Speaking of which, his coworkers had been lucky that he had been so committed to playing the part of O. Otherwise, he’s fairly sure that he could have killed them all in an hour… on a bad day… if he was sloppy about it.) 

The screen morphed in front of his eyes and he glanced up at it, expecting to see anything relating to the Doctor. He didn’t bother trying to limit his search to any planets - though he had assumed that she would be on Earth. He only cared about her movements after Gallifrey, and he had specifically programmed it to only show him results that had appeared in the last twenty four hours. Specifically, the Tardis’ version of twenty four hours, not the linear human excuse for twenty four hours. The trouble with tracking someone with time travelling technology was that she could have gone anywhere and  _ anytime _ after Gallifrey, and there weren’t any rules for what she could and couldn’t do. (Actually, there were, though he knew her well enough to know that she had never paid much attention to them.)

Much to his surprise, the screen in front of him was blank. His ship had not been able to find anything about the Doctor’s whereabouts. His eyelid twitched as he made the Tardis run the search again, assuming that it was some sort of glitch, only to have the same result occur. A brief thought ran through his mind. Could she have died? Was it possible that she had not been able to escape Gallifrey in time? His obliviousness was blissful, only for a moment, before the reality of the situation came back to him and hit him squarely in between his hearts.

No, of course she wasn’t dead. She couldn’t die. It was  _ impossible _ .

The sound of his teeth scraping together ricocheted around his head as his jaw tightened and he decided on another reason for the lack of results. The reason why the Tardis had been unable to find anything recent was for one very simple reason. She didn’t  _ want _ to be found. Not by him, not by anyone. With the possibility of her death out of the way, that left him with only one option of what could have happened with her.

He edited the search to her aliases only and watched the screen as it began to process his request. If his previous search hadn’t worked, then maybe this would. It was one last, final attempt to make this job  _ easy _ . There had always been an element to the chase between him and the Doctor that he enjoyed, and that was the look on her face whenever she realized who he was, who he  _ really _ was. He had seen that look on the plane and he had  _ relished _ it. O -  _ his _ version of O - had required years worth of work and dedication. He had done a job well, well enough to trick her, and it had taken days for the joy of it to wear off.

Now, he wasn’t in the mood to spend years perfecting a character. He wasn’t going to waste his time. She knew who he was. He no longer had the desire to trick her. He wanted to find her and he wanted her to feel his pain, to know what it felt like to be left behind by her. He didn’t need a backstory for that. Their telepathic connection would be enough on its own.

The corner of his mouth turned upward into a small grin as the screen flashed in front of him and provided him with something to work with. There had been a total of forty two cases of her aliases being used in the past few hours, and that least that gave him something to work with. The Master took a step away from the console and fixed his gaze on the screen in front of him.

Forty two files. Forty two places and times that she could be.

He’d better start.

* * *

The Master had been able to sort through nearly half of them within the first ten minutes, mostly thanks to the fact that he knew that she would never go around calling herself “the oncoming storm”, not in her current form. Maybe the grumpy old man that she had the misfortune of being only a regeneration ago would have, but she wasn’t him. ( _ Mercifully _ . It felt like his ears - technically,  _ Missy’s _ ears - were being stabbed every time that one had opened his mouth.) The people who were referring to themselves as such were probably imposters, and he wasn’t going to waste his time with them.

After this, the sorting process had become more challenging. Many of the files didn’t have any images to go along with them and as a result, he was having a difficult time figuring out which were credible and which were not. The Master was beginning to feel like he was back to doing deskwork for MI6, a feeling that he despised and didn’t think that he would ever have to repeat. As it turned out, he had been wrong.

_ He hated being wrong. _

His impulsivity got the better of him and he decided to take a chance, ignoring all of the results except the ones from Earth, since that was where she had always ran off to. The Master didn’t know why. He had spent a decent amount of time among humans and he still failed to see what the appeal was. (That being said, he was the sort of person who hated nearly everyone he met, but humans had always been particularly  _ loathsome _ to him. Maybe this was because the Doctor seemed to love them so much. Maybe, they were bad enough on their own. He didn’t care enough to figure out which of those were the case.)

He directed all of his attention to anything from Earth. Twenty one results turned into only two and before he even read them, a wave of pride rose up inside of him, like he had already found what he was looking for. He could hope, and he would. (How horribly  _ similar _ to someone he knew.)

He took a step closer to the console, squinting to read the fine print of the documents. This body’s vision was not as good as it had been for previous incarnations, though he refused to do anything about it. The Master was more than willing to deal with a little eye strain if it meant that he didn’t have to shove glasses onto his face and parade around in them, shamelessly pointing out his flawed eyesight. The whole thing sounded  _ humiliating _ . 

After a few seconds, he was able to make out the words on the pages in front of him. One was a staff directory for a university in London. At first glance, there was nothing particularly significant about it, not unless someone had a passion for looking at university websites, which he did  _ not _ . On closer examination, he was able to figure out why the Tardis had thought that this was relevant. The grin on his face morphed into a smirk instead. Listed in the directory, there were five words that had gotten his attention. 

“Joan Smith - Professor of Astrophysics.”

The Master knew that there must have been millions of Joan Smiths on Earth, though this one was special. This woman had popped out of nowhere in the past few hours, and though he was sure that there was documentation of her existence somewhere beyond this website, he was sure that if he dated it with his Tardis, it would not be any older than a few hours, no matter what the date said. The Doctor had always been good at forgeries, and there was no reason why she wouldn’t utilize that to create a fake life for herself.

His eyes focused on the email listed next to her name, committing it to memory before he opened up the other file. His knuckles were white with tension against the edge of the console as he read through the document in front of him. His smirk widened and in the reflection of the screen, he could see that his teeth were bared like an animal waiting to strike. All beings with any sense of self preservation would want to run if they saw his current expression, and for good reason. It was the Master’s look of triumph.

The document contained housing information about a woman named Joan Smith, who was renting out a one bedroom flat in the heart of London and according to the file, she had been living in it for nearly a year. That didn’t make any sense to him. The timeline had been altered within the last twenty four hours, otherwise his Tardis wouldn’t be showing him this. The housing contract reeked of time manipulation. She must have travelled back in time, signed it, and then moved in. That would explain it.

The Doctor was selling the part, suffering with humans and university students for almost a full year. He could respect that, but that was the only thing that he could respect about her as he stared at the document. She was that desperate to forget that she had been willing to subject herself to that instead of facing him. She really was a coward.

He pushed himself off of the console, moving around to the other side of it and inputting in the coordinates of the address that he had just read. Absentmindedly, his fingers trailed up to his chest, making sure that the buttons of his waistcoat were still fastened. He had nearly lost his overcoat during the sprint back to his Tardis and he wouldn’t have been surprised if the rest of his clothes had been damaged in some way, though it didn’t seem like that was the case. His fingers moved to rest on his shoulders next, smoothing out the purple wool of his coat and straightening out the fabric. Lastly, he glanced at his own reflection once more, a small frown settling on his face at the sight of the ash streaked across one of his cheeks. He rubbed at it with his palm - probably a little more roughly than he needed to - and that seemed to wipe it off. 

He may have narrowly escaped Gallifrey, though he wasn’t going to let her know that. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

His Tardis lurched ever so slightly forward and he caught himself on the console, holding himself there with one of his hands as he regained his balance. The Master had always been a better pilot than the Doctor - though that didn’t take much - and the only time his ship ever moved like that was when it had landed. He pulled his hands away and let them rest at his side once more. Letting out a long, tired breath, he stepped away from the console.

His eyes trained on the door of his Tardis. It was only then that it occurred to him that he was planning on going into this situation without any sort of weapon on him. Not that he would use one, it would do no good. She would probably just regenerate and then he would be faced with the need to kill her again and…  _ ugh _ . That sounded like more trouble than it was worth. Still, he could not remember the last time he had been in her path and not been bothered to arm himself. Perhaps, this was a shift of some kind.

Probably not.

He stepped through the doors without giving it a second thought.

* * *

The Master was greeted by a cold gust of wind as soon as he exited his Tardis. It was the kind of breeze that cut him to the bone, and he had to fight the urge to draw his coat up around himself. Of course, out of all of the seasons, it  _ had _ to be winter. For a brief, fleeting second, he found himself thinking back to the more mild weather on Gallifrey and how he could spend nearly every day outside, underneath the warmth of the suns. He shook his head, effectively snapping himself out of those thoughts. There had been nothing left for him on Gallifrey. Everything that he loved about that planet had left ages before he had ever tried to destroy it. There was no reason for him to reminisce about something that he hadn’t cared about for a very long time. 

He turned back to his Tardis and was greeted by the doors of a large moving van, causing him to arch an eyebrow. It fit the setting, he could not deny that, though he had still been hoping for something a little more  _ tasteful _ . At least the cabin that he had lived in managed to have some sort of aesthetic value. There was nothing aesthetically pleasing about an industrial automobile like that. The Master slammed the doors shut and turned around to face the other side of the street.

He would have time to fixate on his ship’s design choices later. For now, something else -  _ someone _ else - was the center of his attention.

He stalked across the road. Thankfully, it was late and the sun had already set, which meant that traffic was scarce. This not only limited the chance of a human seeing him, it limited the chance of him having to wait for a human to pass by in their car. This particular incarnation was not a patient person and at the moment, the last thing a human wanted to do was test his patience. 

His feet had just hit the pavement of the footpath when one of the doors to the building in front of him opened up. The Master picked up his pace slightly and slipped through the door before it shut on him. He was sure to keep his head turned away from the person who had just walked out of it, casting his eyes down so that they couldn’t see his face. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor’s pets were still around, and he wasn’t going to risk getting recognized by one of them. (She always had a hard time being alone and he couldn’t imagine her fully isolating herself from everyone that she knew for a full year. She didn’t have it in her.)

Once he was shielded from the cool breeze of the nightime air, he removed his hands from his pockets. His gaze moved back up as soon as he was inside of the building. The Master tilted his head to the side and rolled his shoulders, straightening out his spine the best he could and forcing himself up to his full height. He couldn’t help but feel a little cheated in the regeneration department. He may have finally been taller than the Doctor, but it was by a  _ miniscule _ amount, and he was confident that he had been robbed of a few inches. It had been  _ humiliating _ to have her last regeneration tower over him, and he had hoped that roles would be reversed in this body. Unfortunately for him, that hadn’t been how it had ended up.

Regeneration really  _ was _ a lottery.

He was pulled out of his lament when he got to the first door on the left, stopping in his tracks and pivoting to face it. His eyes burned holes into the wood of the door… if it actually was wood. Surely the Doctor wouldn’t be stupid enough to seal herself behind nothing but a  _ normal door _ , not unless she had a death wish, which she did not. That was his job, not hers.

He brought his knuckles up to the door and knocked four times in a familiar rhythm. It was a few seconds later when he realized that he had been holding his breath. It took the feeling of his lungs screaming at him for the Master to begrudgingly give into his body’s needs.

The sound of something being knocked over inside of the flat caused alarms to go off in his mind and he took a step back from the door, fully expecting to be harmed in some way. Maybe the Doctor had refused to  _ kill _ him, but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t caused him any pain. She was actually quite good at that. Maybe this time, she would be the one with a hand around his neck. Maybe this time, she would finish what she had started on Gallifrey.

Nearly a hundred plans of action ran through his mind as he stood there. He almost regretted not grabbing that gun while he had the chance. The Master wasn’t going to try to step into her flat - it was possible that she had biolocked it against him. As nice as barging into her personal living space sounded, he wasn’t going to risk it. That shouldn’t pose a huge problem to him, though. He had always been better at telepathy than she had been, and he was confident that he could establish a psychic link with her without having to cross into her living space. Then, that should stun her just long enough for him to-

The door opened and an all too familiar face stood there, staring at him. 

He had expected some sign of panic from her. He had been hoping for it, in fact. He had wanted to see the same look on her face that he had seen on the plane, an expression of sheer shock at the fact that he was somehow alive. (Really, her lack of faith in his survival skills were  _ insulting _ . Didn’t she know that she couldn’t get rid of him?) He wanted to hear some sort of exclamation from her and if not that, then a deafening silence as she decided what to do. He had planned to sense her disbelief and her  _ fear _ through their bond.

There was only one problem. None of that was happening. The woman standing in front of him was undeniably the Doctor, but she wasn’t acting how he had expected at all.

“Hiya.”

Her vocabulary clearly hadn’t evolved in his time away from her. That was disappointing. Her hair was more wavy than he remembered and it had grown since he had last seen her. On closer inspection of her face, it seemed that she had gotten rid of that hideous earring that she had  _ insisted _ on wearing, which was a small improvement. However, her fashion choice had not gotten any better, as he discovered when his eyes drifted down to the wide neckline of the plain cotton shirt that she was wearing. (She still had no respect for  _ common decency _ , not even in this persona of hers. Some things never changed.) His gaze lingered on the blanket that she had draped around her shoulders, no doubt in an effort to warm herself up. He could think of more practical ways to conserve body heat, but she had never been the practical sort, had she?

The Doctor -  _ Joan Smith _ \- blinks at him, and the movement brings his eyes back up to her face. She was  _ smiling _ at him. A familiar rage stirred in his chest. She had no right to smile at him, not after everything that had happened. Not after she had left him to die. The Master had prepared himself for her to be furious at him - he had wished for it. He wanted her to be like him. The Doctor had always had a capacity for darkness, a darkness that was just bubbling under the surface. He had seen a hint of it on Gallifrey and he expected to see it again when she opened the door. 

What he had not prepared himself for was obliviousness. This ignorance cut deeper than any of her words or actions. It was the ultimate insult to him and everything that he was. Had she forgotten about him in only a year? How could she sleep at night? How could she live with herself? His breath shook and he reached out with one word and one word only.

_ Contact. _

He squeezed his eyes shut and allowed himself to live through all of his pain for the first time in years. Her betrayal was fresh in his mind and he recalled the feeling of laying in the grass, realizing that the Doctor had left his previous incarnation to die on her own. Missy had planned to die there, and she had, in a way. The part of the Master that stood with the Doctor had been left on that planet, and he doubted that it would ever return. He wanted her to know how badly that had broken him. She deserved to feel his pain, pain that  _ she _ had been the cause of. 

It took less than a second for him to realize that something was wrong.  _ Very wrong. _

His eyes shot open. She had never been able to cut off their connection. She had tried, but she had never succeeded in blocking him out of her mind completely. The Master could always feel some sort of resistance if she was trying to push him out but now, he didn’t sense any of that, because he didn’t sense  _ anything _ .

That was impossible. It was like her end of their connection had been cut off completely. He had never felt anything like this, not even when they were children and they were still learning to use their telepathy to communicate. Never once had he felt so isolated from her and her mind.  _ Until now. _

“Are you feeling okay?” Her voice -  _ the Doctor’s _ voice - pulled him back to the present. The Master tried to wrap his head around what had just happened. A new emotion rose up in him, one that replaced his rage or his desire for revenge. This was an icy sense of abandonment.

“Joan” tilted her head to the side ever so slightly, obviously perplexed at the sight of him. She wasn’t acting like the Doctor - she was acting like a normal human woman who was somewhat surprised to see a stranger at her door. She didn’t know him, and with a sinking feeling at the bottom of his stomach, he realized that she wasn’t just acting. The Doctor may have been able to lie to some beings but not him,  _ never him _ , because he could always see right through it. This wasn’t just the Doctor posing as Joan Smith, the human. This  _ was _ Joan Smith, the human. 

_ No. No, no, no, no. She hadn’t. She couldn’t. _

She  _ had _ , though. She had chosen to forget instead of face her mistakes. She had chosen to forget about  _ everything _ so that she wouldn’t be plagued by the memories of what had happened. She couldn’t cope. He should be proud. After all, hadn’t he wanted this? Hadn’t he wanted to break her mind?

So why did it feel like his hearts were being ripped out of his chest?

The Master nearly forgot about the potential biolock because his first instinct was to barge into her flat and demand to know where the biodata module disguised as a fob watch was. She didn’t get to just  _ forget _ , not if he couldn’t. There was no point in trying to speak to her like this, not when she couldn’t even understand why he was angry, let alone remember who he was. He needed  _ the Doctor _ for that, not this  _ human _ , and the only way he could get her back was by finding that damn watch. 

_ He needed her back. _

“Uh… wrong door. Sorry." His expression relaxed a little and he forced a small, awkward grin onto his face, only to take another step back from the door. His hands had found a place deep in his pockets, hidden just enough so that she wouldn't see his fists.

"Oh. Have a good night, then," she murmured, looking up at him with kind eyes and a pleasant smile that looked so, so human.  _ Too _ human.

She didn't get a reply because he was already turning on his heels when she said those words. The door to the building slammed shut and the Master had stepped out onto the street before she could notice the glassy look in his eyes.

* * *

The heavy material of his overcoat hit the floor of his Tardis with a small thud. The sheer heat in his body was nearly unbearable even without it. The Master reached up at the collar of his shirt and undid the top two buttons with trembling fingers, grateful that he no longer felt like he was being choked. He leaned against the console of his Tardis, bracing himself and forcing his lungs to take a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm down. As he had predicted, this didn’t have much of an impact on him and he growled, followed by a curse in a language that had been dead for a very long time. One of his fists collided with the metal surface beneath it and his ship let out a low groan of protest. 

Under any other circumstances, he would have stopped. His Tardis had already been partially damaged and he wasn’t going to make it any worse. That would mean that he would be trapped on Earth among the humans for an unknown amount of time, and that sounded like a cruel and unusual form of torture to him. Just like the Doctor had  _ chosen _ to be stuck on Earth among the humans. Of course she had. There was a reason the humans were always her pets - or “travelling companions”, as she preferred to call them. It didn’t matter what she called them, though. The message had always been clear to him. She valued humans more than anything else or anyone else. 

He wondered if Joan felt the same way, seeing as she was one of them now.

The Master let out a snarl and raised both of his fists, bringing them down on the Tardis console. It felt strangely freeing and  _ good _ , and he did it again.  _ And again _ . When the metallic surface became stained with blood and every bone in his hands felt like it had been shattered, he still didn’t stop. It was only when the Tardis tilted on its side and sent him flying back against a wall that he was pulled out of his rage induced trance.

He knew better than to look down at his hands as he sat there, chest rising and falling with every breath he took. He could always heal them with a little regeneration energy, once he decided that he wanted to. Unfortunately, that would require him to focus on taking care of himself and at the moment, his mind was elsewhere.

The problem with chameleon archs was just how vulnerable they made the user. There would be no regernations for her while she was using the arch. It must have been hard for her to give up her infinite lifetimes just for the sake of forgetting her past. She was lucky that he was feeling merciful. If he wanted to kill her, he could have, and it would have been so  _ easy _ . 

(Admittedly, he may have considered her vulnerability in a different way. Even though he had no interest in harming her while she was human, he doubted that her other enemies - and she had a  _ lot _ \- would think twice about doing exactly that. Not only was she a coward for escaping her life by using a chameleon arch, she was also more stupid than he thought. That was almost  _ disappointing _ to him.)

The Master was consumed with one need, and that was to find the fob watch. He would gladly break in while she was at work and ransack the place if it meant that he would be able to find what he was looking for, but the possibility of a biolock on her flat was making him far more reluctant to choose that as a course of action. If he wasn’t going to do that, then he would need to think of something else, something that wouldn’t require him breaking and entering.

He wipes his head with his arm, pushing some sweat soaked hair away from his forehead. If only he was still O, this would be so much easier. She had trusted O. She had  _ liked _ O. Even though  _ Joan Smith _ wouldn’t remember his cover being blown, there were other people who could, other people at MI6 who he had regrettably kept alive. He wasn’t going to risk it. He would have to come up with something else.

…  _ Unless _ .

His dark eyes glittered with something malicious as he leaned forward a little. Maybe his time as O hadn’t been a complete waste. He could learn something from it. The Master was a good actor when he needed to be, and now, he absolutely  _ needed _ to be. His lips turned upward into a smile.

Very well. He wouldn’t break into her flat, not when he had a better plan. He had spent years as O, surely he could suffer through another persona for as long as it took to get her to trust him. After the impression that he had just made, that would be easier said than done. Still, if Joan was anything like the Doctor that he knew, she had terrible judgement, especially when it came to strangers. 

_ Strangers _ . That was what they were now, wasn’t it? His smile faltered, but only for a split second before he caught it and fixed it. They wouldn’t be strangers for long, not if his plan worked. He would have her back before he knew it. Then, she would finally be forced to face him and maybe, The Master would finally be satisfied. He forced himself back up to his feet, staring at his palms distastefully. He’d have to fix those before he could do anything. He couldn’t exactly show up at her door with mangled hands, could he?

Fine. Healing first, planning second. Then, he could get to work.

Joan Smith would be dead by the end of the month.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joan is visited by a new neighbor who she has more in common with than she thought. A bond is formed. (Or perhaps, it is re-formed?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this earlier, but a storm came through my area this week and knocked out my power for more than a day (yay Midwest weather). To be honest, I sort of hate this chapter but I am proud of how many references I was able to cram into it, so good for me I guess.
> 
> The plot will get spiced up a little after this, I just had to establish a few things before I can jump into writing the action. Thank you for putting up with my rambling, it means a lot. <3

Most of the time, Joan struggled to remember the subject of her dreams. This was probably because she didn’t sleep as much as most people. On the rare occasions where she did dream, she always seemed to have more important things to think about. She had never put much stock into dream theorists who wanted her to believe that there was some deep, hidden meaning behind what her mind conjured up. She was a woman of science and she liked to think that she knew her mind better than anyone else, and she was smart enough to realize that a dream was  _ just _ a dream.

So, when she woke up in a cold sweat from one of her dreams, it struck her as unusual. Very unusual, in fact. 

(Like  _ a man showing up at your door who you are certain you have never met before but seems incredibly familiar _ kind of unusual. She had been trying to ignore that particular event though for some reason, it was the first thing that came to mind when she woke up.) 

Her mind was blank…  _ mostly _ . She could feel a letter - an  _ initial _ , maybe - at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t remember what it was or why it bore any significance. Joan’s thoughts wandered back to the strange man at her door and his face flashed behind her eyes. She had only seen him for a few seconds and yes, he had struck her as a little strange and somewhat familiar, though there was nothing particularly odd about that encounter, so it made no sense for her to dwell on it. She realized that her hands were shaking and she shifted, rolling over onto her side so that she was more comfortable. Despite having been asleep just a few moments before, her mind was racing as she tried to rationalize the panic that she had felt when she had woken up. Her mind could do weird things while she slept. Why should this be any different?

Joan glanced over at the clock on her nightstand, checking the time. She only looked at the first digit before she was able to realize that it was too early for her to wake up, regardless of how badly her dream had shaken her. She really was far too old to be worried about a nightmare. (Not that bad dreams had bothered her much when she was a child, either, though she couldn’t be certain. Much of her childhood was a blur to her.) She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, trying to shut off her brain just long enough for her to drift back to sleep.

He was just a stranger. Nothing more. Apparently, she would have to keep reminding herself of that fact until she believed it.

* * *

The oatmeal that she had made tasted like wet sand in her mouth. Cooking had never been an art form that she had been able to perfect, let alone become proficient in. Unfortunately, every time she touched food, it had the habit of falling apart in her hands. Joan cringed as she remembered the last time she had tried to make herself dinner. The smell of burnt pasta had lingered in her flat for nearly a week. 

She pushed a chunk of apple around in the bowl with her spoon as she went through her day in her mind. It was Sunday, so there was no need for her to go into work. This was probably a good thing, considering she hadn’t been able to properly get back to sleep after that dream had woken her up. Still, Joan hated being unproductive, even if it  _ was _ the weekend. She glanced over at her laptop, forming a plan to busy herself by finishing grading a set of papers, only to realize that she had completed all of that work the night before. She would have to pat herself on the back for that one. She may have enjoyed teaching astrophysics, but that didn’t mean that she liked suffering through mostly dull essays about that subject. Yazmin Khan had been one of the few students who had been able to write a paper that didn’t make her want to fall asleep halfway through reading it, and she felt a sharp pang of loss - and not for the first time, either - because she no longer had her in class.

At least she was still able to see her around the campus every now and then, thanks to Yazmin’s research program, and her former student was always willing to stop and talk with her for a few minutes if they crossed paths. It sounded like everything was going well for her, even though Yazmin had always seemed to prefer hearing about Joan’s life instead of telling her about her own, though she wasn’t sure why. She was a brilliant young woman with her entire life ahead of her, and Joan  _ wasn’t _ . Not that her life was  _ uninteresting _ . It just wasn’t the same.

The sound of a knock at her door nearly made her jump. She wasn’t expecting any visitors, just like she hadn’t been expecting anyone last night, either. In all fairness, she rarely expected visitors, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary for her. However, two visitors in less than two days  _ was _ out of the ordinary. 

She rose to her feet and stepped around the table, approaching the door slowly. At first, she assumed it was a delivery or something along those lines… but it was a Sunday, so that was impossible. So much for figuring out who could be at her door. Joan moved to her door and bent down slightly, staring through the peephole in order to get her answer. 

Her eyes widened a little.

_ He _ was back. The man from the night before was back. Why? A stranger visiting her once was an accident, but the same man visiting her twice was intentional. It had to be. Paranoia rushed through her and she swallowed, backing away from the door. Could she just pretend that she wasn’t in? She hadn’t made any noise this time around, so he would have no way of knowing whether she was actually home or not. 

No, that was stupid. Even if he was acting a little odd, Joan hadn’t felt threatened by him. She had just been a little caught off guard at seeing him at her door. So far, he had done nothing to make her feel like she was in danger, and she was acting like a child. (Was she really  _ this _ phased by getting visitors? She needed to work on her social life… sometime.)

Her fingers found the door handle and she opened it slowly, still a little cautious. Mercifully, seeing the expression on the man’s face helped to relax her and quiet some of her fears. The night before he had looked confused, maybe even a little desperate. It seemed that this was no longer the case.

He had traded in the suit he had been wearing for a grey pullover and jeans, which was not only easier on the eyes, it also made him look a lot less out of place. She noted that his hair was a little more messy than when she had last seen it and his eyes looked calmer… if that was even possible. His hands were buried in his pockets and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other when he saw her. There was something about his posture that looked incredibly uncomfortable, which was a sharp contrast from how he had been acting last night.

Once again, her brain told her that he looked familiar and once again, Joan ignored the feeling.

“Hello again,” she said, taking the initiative to start talking. She half expected to have to wait a few seconds for him to reply to her - like he had the previous night - but she was proven wrong.

“Hi.” He shifted his weight once more, offering her a small smile as he did so. She thought that it seemed a little uncertain, though she wasn’t sure. “Uh… I’m afraid this is going to sound a little strange.”

“Good thing I don’t mind strange,” she replied with a smile of her own.

“Right.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed them in front of his chest, holding his arms tight to his body. “Did I stop by here last night?”

Joan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

“No, sorry.” Once again, he shifted his weight. “I wasn’t sure if I had dreamed it or not.” 

That sounded familiar. 

“Oh?” she asked, just as confused as she had been earlier. He seemed to find this funny, because his grin widened a little.

“Uh… I went out last night, and I think I had a little too much to drink, and I just moved in and... ” He trailed off, pulling one of his hands out of his pocket and scratching the back of his neck. “I guess I got confused about which flat was mine. Sorry. It won’t happen again.” 

Joan felt a certain amount of sympathy for him, and felt even more stupid for ever feeling threatened by his presence. It was clear that he didn’t have any bad intentions and he seemed genuinely remorseful - if not borderline  _ mortified _ \- at what had happened, and she was more than willing to forgive that.

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “You said you just moved in?”

“Yeah. I live a little further down.” He pointed in the general direction of where his flat was. “Not really sure how I got that mixed up,” he added, cringing a little as he spoke. Joan felt her smile grow at the comment. He seemed like he was a bit of an awkward person, like he didn’t quite belong, which might have been off putting to some people, but not to her.

Maybe this was because they had that in common.

“It’s okay. Really.” She stuck out her hand, offering it to him to shake. “I’m Joan, by the way. Since we’re probably going to be seeing more of each other."

His eyes darted down to her hand and he stared at it for about a second before he took it, shaking it softly. “Owen.”

She let go and her own hand dropped back to her side as she looked at him. Joan was beginning to get the distinct impression that he was not a people person, which meant that he would fit in perfectly. None of her neighbors were very sociable, either. This probably meant that none of them had introduced themselves to him, or made him feel particularly welcome. Technically, there was nothing wrong with that - most people probably wouldn’t talk to someone who was just renting - but she wasn’t like most people. 

“You said you just moved in?” He nodded.

“It’s for my job.”

“Where do you work?” Joan doubted anyone else in the building had asked him these kinds of questions and she just hoped that she wasn’t coming off as weirdly interested in his life. To a point, she  _ was _ interested, though it was for purely innocent reasons. (In all honesty, she was just glad to have someone to talk to and learn about. She had almost forgotten what that felt like.)

Her train of thought was derailed when he answered her, offering the name of the university that she worked at. Joan could feel her eyes widen at the coincidence. 

“Are you a professor?” she asked, sounding a little more hopeful than she wanted to.

Owen nodded -  _ maybe a little sheepishly _ , Joan thought - confirming her suspicions. “Yes.” Both of his hands returned to his pockets. “History.”

“Nice.” Her lips turned up. “Astrophysics,” she continued, gesturing at herself. Now, it was Owen’s turn to look surprised, and his eyes widened a little as he realized what she meant.

“Really?” 

“Really,” Joan confirmed. There was something about seeing him caught off guard that filled her with a strange sense of accomplishment, though she couldn’t explain why. Apparently, she was riding this wave of confidence as she continued speaking. “Would you like to come in?”

The slightly surprised expression on his face turned into one that was close to  _ shock _ , and the confidence that she had been feeling was quickly replaced with regret. Lovely, she had just ruined this entire exchange. She should have known better than to ask him something like that.

“I meant for a cup of tea… if you want,” she clarified, fighting the urge to bang her head against the wall. Owen cleared his throat.

“That sounds…  _ nice _ ,” he replied, and his words alleviated some of Joan’s anxiety. That was, until he continued. “But I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

A strange panic crept up her throat as he finished speaking, even though she didn’t understand  _ why _ . For some reason, being left alone was one of the most nerve racking things that could happen to her at that moment, and the prospect of him leaving filled her with dread.

“It’s fine. I don’t have anything planned,” she murmured, dismissing his argument of wasting her time. “Besides…” she trailed off, forcing a warm smile back onto her face. “If we’re going to be working together, maybe we should get to know each other. I doubt this is the last time we’re gonna cross paths.”

Once again, Owen smiled, like she had just said something that he thought was funny but was part of a joke that she didn’t understand. If that was coming from anyone else, it would probably bother her, but him. It felt oddly…  _ familiar _ , and she didn’t mind it.

“Okay.” Owen nodded. “Thank you.”

Joan opened up her door the rest of the way and stepped to the side, giving him plenty of room to walk into her flat. There was a small voice in the back of her mind, probably her last remaining bit of logic, reminding her that this was impulsive and wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t get attached to people so easily. She was inviting someone into her life who she had just met and barely knew. Maybe, she was too trusting and should be more careful.

Of course, she did the responsible thing and completely ignored those thoughts, shutting the door as soon as he was inside. Something about Owen’s demeanor seemed to relax a little once he was through the door, and she was a little relieved about this fact. She felt somewhat responsible for his obvious discomfort from earlier, even though she hadn’t been the one who had caused it. Still, it was nice to see him looking relaxed.

Owen didn’t speak to her, not at first. His attention was on the large bookshelf against the wall of her living room. Thankfully, Joan didn’t mind. This distraction of his gave her enough time to dispose of the bowl of something that was supposed to be oatmeal before he could see it. She busied herself by filling up a tea kettle and putting it on her stove, assuming that he would talk when he was ready.

As she predicted, he did.

“You have a lot of books,” he observed, turning back to her. Joan laughed a little and nodded.

“Yeah. Haven’t read half of them, though.” 

“Why not?” Owen asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Never got around to it, I guess,” she replied, leaning against the kitchen counter as she looked at him. She hadn’t really expected him to start focusing on her life, but she didn’t want that to last.  _ She _ was the one who had invited him in, not the other way around, and he deserved a chance to talk about himself. 

“You teach history, right?” Joan asked, trying to turn the conversation away from her as soon as possible. “What period?” This seemed to catch his attention, because he stopped looking at the books and his eyes flashed with something that she took as excitement.

“Victorian era, mostly,” he stated, eyeing an armchair in her living room as he spoke. “But I’m interested in other times, too.”

“Like what?” Owen shrugged.

“A bit of everything, to be honest.” He pried his gaze away from the chair and glanced back at her. “What about you?”

“Do you really want me to listen to me explain black body radiation?” she asked, cracking a lopsided grin.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Do I?” 

You don’t want to hear about astrophysics. Unless you have trouble sleeping. Then it's perfect.” Owen chuckled a little, and Joan found herself being temporarily distracted by the noise. (It was yet another thing about him that seemed awfully familiar.)

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve never been very good at science, anyway.”

“I almost failed every history exam I took,” Joan admitted, laughing a little herself. “Looks like we have something in common.”

“Looks like it.”

The sound of the kettle whistling distracted her and she turned back around, taking it off of the heat and turning off her stove. Joan reached up and opened up the cupboard door, pulling out a teapot and several tea bags before shutting it again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Owen had moved over to the shelf and was inspecting one of her books. Afraid of forgetting what she had come over here to do, she turned her attention back to pouring the tea into the pot and placing the teabags inside of it. At least she was relatively confident about her tea making abilities. 

“You said you weren’t any good at history,” Owen remarked after a few more moments, causing her to turn back around and look at the novel in his hand. She had to bite back a laugh when she realized which one he was holding. Out of all of her collection, of  _ course _ he had to find her copy of War and Peace. He couldn’t have found any other book about literally  _ anything else _ . 

“I’m not.”

“Really?” Owen turned the cover toward her so that she could see what it was, as though she hadn’t already realized. “That’s not what Tolstoy says.”

“I wouldn’t know what Tolstoy has to say,” she said with a shrug. “I haven’t read it.” Owen tilted his head to the side, considering her words, before flashing her a wide grin.

“Touché,” he said, flipping through the book before placing it back on her shelf. She took this pause in the conversation as an opportunity to ask him some more questions.

“You’re starting in time for the spring term?”

“Yeah.” His gaze returned to the armchair. “Can I sit down?”

“Go ahead,” Joan replied, nodding at him. He settled into the chair and stared at her.

“How long have you been teaching?” he asked, and just like, she was the focus of conversation once more.

“About ten years,” she responded, without giving too much thought to the answer. It certainly had  _ felt _ longer than a decade, but she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone, including him. “What about you?” Owen took a few seconds to answer, probably because he was doing math in his head.

“Six years.” His answer didn’t make complete sense in Joan’s mind, mostly because he looked like he was about the same age as she was. He must have started his studies late, or he had changed his major. That would explain it. She was tempted to ask him some of the questions on her mind, but she was afraid of coming off as nosey, so she decided against it. She was not expecting him to willingly give up the information, but when he opened his mouth next, that was exactly what he did.

“I didn’t always want to lecture,” he admitted to her with a smile. “So I got a late start.”

Joan was going to ask him to elaborate on that, but she glanced back at her oven and realized that it was time to remove the teabags. This task took up all of her attention, mostly because she was afraid of somehow messing it up, so she bit her tongue and elected to focus on the tea instead. Thankfully, Owen seemed to get the message, because he fell silent as soon as she turned away from him.

Hopefully she didn’t seem rude. She  _ hated _ seeming rude.

After grabbing two mugs from another cupboard and placing everything onto a tray, she walked into her living room and set the beverages down on her coffee table before sitting down on the couch opposite of her guest. Owen eyed the tea, almost as if he was going to offer to pour it, but he kept his mouth shut. In the meantime, Joan was realizing that she had forgotten to bring something.

“I didn’t grab any milk,” she observed, before bracing her hands on the couch and starting to get back up. Owen shifted forward as she did so.

“I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” 

He nodded in reply. “I’m sure. I like it plain.”

Luckily for her, Joan shared similar feelings. She decided against getting up again and poured him a mug full of tea, waiting for him to take it before filling up her own. Owen lifted the cup to his lips and took a slow, experimental sip, lowering it once he was done.

“It’s good. Thank you,” he said, the grin still present on his face. She took that as a good sign.

“You’re welcome.”

Still, she failed to see how it was particularly  _ good _ , let alone how she could take credit for something that she had done very little to prepare, but she smiled at the compliment anyway. Joan felt like  _ she _ should be the one thanking  _ him _ for agreeing to come into her flat and have a conversation with her. It had been a long time since anyone had done that, and it was a welcome distraction from her own life, even if it was just for a few minutes.

A silence fell between the two of them again, though this time, Joan didn’t feel like she had to fill it with speaking. As much as she disliked quiet, she was willing to deal with it, just for a little while. In an odd way, Owen’s presence made her feel like she didn’t have to break it.

She hadn’t felt that way around  _ anyone _ for a very long time.

When she glanced up from her mug, she noticed that he had not touched his own drink since he had thanked her for it, and his cup had been placed on her coffee table. He seemed to be lost in thought, and as tempted as she was to know what he was thinking about, she decided against it. She just hoped that the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable to him. Still, there was something about the look in his eyes that felt strikingly  _ familiar _ to her, and it made her want to ask him the question that had been on her mind ever since the night before. 

Before she could back out of it doing it for what felt like the hundredth time, she asked him exactly that.

“Have we met before?” The question hung in the air between them. Owen considered her words and slowly shook his head.

“No?” His statement came out as more of a question, as though he was just as uncertain about the answer as she was. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” she replied, not completely convinced. “You just looked familiar.”

“I get that a lot.” Owen shrugged and gave her a genuine grin. Despite her skepticism, Joan found herself trusting his words more at the sight of his smile. “I think I have one of those faces.”

She wasn’t completely sure what happened next, but she was fairly certain that he shifted in a way and happened to bang into the coffee table, knocking over his mug as he did so. Whether it was because of how he had hit it, or because that piece of furniture had always been a little unstable and she had never gotten around to fixing it, his tea spilled over the surface of the table… and landed directly on her clothes. It didn’t burn - though it wasn’t exactly  _ pleasant _ , either - and she was honestly more worried about how she was going to wash tea out of her clothes.

At least Owen was making up for her not being particularly focused on her wellbeing.

She dismissed a string of curse words that came from him, followed by about three different ways of saying  _ I’m sorry _ to her. When she pried her attention away from her clothing and glanced up at him, Joan noticed that his face looked significantly  _ redder _ than it had before. She tried not to read into it too much. She was sure that she would be more than a little embarrassed as well if their roles were reversed. (Granted, there was something undeniably  _ endearing _ about his expression, but she kept those thoughts to herself. Good thing he couldn’t read her mind or anything like that.)

“I can clean this up,” he offered, already getting to his feet. Joan followed his lead, setting down the soaked napkin that she had been using to sop up some of the tea on her shirt.

“Are you sure?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t have to.”

“I made the mess, so I’ll take care of it,” he replied, as though it was that simple. Technically, it  _ was _ , but it had been an accident and it wasn’t like it had been his fault. There was no need for him to be a martyr.

“You’re sure?” He nodded again, this time a little impatiently. Joan glanced back down at her clothes. It would be rude to leave him alone like this, but it would only be for a little bit, and she would be back soon enough.

“Okay. Thank you.” She stepped away from him and the coffee table, taking a few steps toward her bedroom before remembering that he was a guest and she was leaving him - even if it was just for a few minutes - without any context. He deserved an explanation at least. “I’ll be back soon. I’m going to…” She gestured at her shirt. 

“Change?” Owen questioned, finishing her own sentence for her. He had picked up where she had left off, taking his own napkin and starting to wipe up the spilled drink.

“Yeah,  _ change _ . Right. I’ll… be back in a few minutes.” He didn’t reply to her verbally, though he did nod, folding the napkin in half as he did so. This was good enough for Joan, and she walked the rest of the distance between her and her room, shutting and locking the door once she was inside.

She couldn’t help but feel guilty for leaving him behind, but she ignored that feeling the best she could. She was just in another room, it wasn’t like she had abandoned him on a whole other planet or something along those lines. She was sure he would be fine.

* * *

Her clothes had been discarded and were currently hanging on the shower rod in her bathroom. They had stopped dripping by the time she had taken them off, but she had run water over them so that it would make the stains a bit less noticeable. (It hadn’t.) She just needed them to stay there until after Owen left, then she could put them into the laundry and hope that the stains would actually wash out. (They wouldn’t.) She had also rinsed off any lingering tea on her skin with a washcloth and warm water in an attempt to get rid of the smell of tea on her body. 

It had worked… kind of.

Joan traded her shirt for another one of the same style, just in a darker color. Her trousers were a bit more of a hassle, but in the end, she had just decided to pull on a pair of jeans and call it a day. She had already kept him waiting long enough, and though she trusted Owen - probably more than she should have, to be honest - she was  _ not _ going to wait to see what he got up to when he was bored. People had a habit of doing stupid things when they were bored. 

She would know.

She opened up the door and stepped back out, feeling a little more relieved than she would like to admit when she saw that he was still in her flat and hadn’t left while she was changing her clothes. As he had promised, the table had been wiped off completely, as well as the floor beneath it. Owen’s back was to her, and she realized that he was rinsing out his mug in her kitchen sink. She hadn’t asked for him to do that, but she wasn’t complaining, either.

“Thank you,” she said. Apparently, he hadn’t heard her come out, because as soon as she spoke, he jumped a little and turned around. Joan was glad to see that his face seemed a little less flushed, but his eyes were wide with surprise. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” she added, apologizing.

“It’s okay,” Owen said, placing his mug back down in the sink and turning to face her completely. “How are you?” he asked, folding his arms in front of his chest as he looked at her.

“I’m fine,” Joan replied, smiling at him warmly. 

“Uh… I’m sorry. Again.” He offered her a smile of his own, though in her opinion, it looked a little forced. Apologizing seemed like it was a second nature to him, and she couldn’t help but feel a little sad for him. What had happened in his life that had caused him to behave like that?

“It was an accident. You don’t need to apologize.” His eyes softened a little, but she still got the idea that he didn’t completely believe her.

“Right.” He uncrossed his arms and his hands dropped back down to his sides. “I should probably get going - before I spill anymore tea.” A familiar loneliness began to set in, a loneliness that could feel completely overwhelming if Joan wasn’t careful.

“Okay.”

He made his way to the door of her flat and she followed, unlocking it and opening it up for him. He stepped out into the hallway before turning around one last time. For a moment, she thought that he might say something to her, but no words came out of his mouth, so she decided to speak instead.

“I’ll see you at work,” she commented, without thinking much about what she was saying. Thankfully, Owen didn’t seem to be bothered by her words. In fact, a wide smile formed on his face, and as far as Joan was concerned, he looked like he was the happiness that she had seen. She must have said something right.

“I’m counting on it.” He took a step back from the door, that smile still present on his face. (A smile which may or may not have been growing on her.) “Have a good day.”

“You too.”

Within seconds he was gone, making his way down the hallway. She shut the door as soon as he was out of sight, almost immediately becoming aware of how silent her own flat was without him in it. It wasn’t like she missed  _ him _ \- not really - she just missed having other people around.

It wasn’t like Joan had a hard time making friends - it was the  _ keeping _ them part that she struggled with. People had a tendency of leaving, and who was she to keep them from moving on with their lives? She valued her own freedom more than almost anything else, and she wouldn’t  _ dare _ to try to control someone else. The truth was that Owen was the closest thing to a friend that she had for a very long time. Was it too presumptuous to call them “friends”? They were certainly  _ friendly _ , but she was friendly with almost everyone, so that didn’t mean very much. The only difference was that he was friendly to her. 

Well, now she just sounded  _ clingy _ . That was embarrassing.

A part of her knew how foolish it was to not only  _ trust _ someone she barely knew, but to  _ like the company _ of someone she barely knew, and she couldn’t really explain why she felt this way. She just  _ did _ . As for his familiarity, Joan didn’t have an answer for that either, but she was going to try to stop thinking about it. She had no memory of ever meeting him, and Owen had seemed honest enough when he had told her that he didn’t think that they had ever crossed paths before now. She was inclined to believe him. After all, she couldn’t understand why he would lie to her. It wasn’t like she had done anything to deserve that.

She inspected her couch, thankful to see that there hadn’t been any tea spilled on it - or if there had been, Owen had done a spectacular job of cleaning it up. As soon as she lifted up her own mug, she discovered that her tea had grown cold, but she still drank the rest of it, knowing that she was in desperate need of any caffeine it could give her. She would just have to stumble through the rest of the day and hopefully, she wouldn't have any dreams get in the way of her sleeping well that night. She only needed a peaceful night of rest and then she would be back to normal. 

After a few seconds, her gaze settled on her desk, specifically on the desk drawer that was open. She stood up, stepped across the room, and shut it without a second thought. Joan may not have remembered opening it, but she came to the conclusion that it had probably been open all night, and she had just forgotten to shut it after she was done grading. It wasn’t like that would be the first time something like that had slipped her mind. She did make mistakes, after all. 

Besides, she was only human. It was to be expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Tumblr dot com under the username spyfalls. Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


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